WNYLaborToday.com Editor's Note: Pictured above at the long-term Pediatric HighPoint Unit's new playground is Hayley Guzowski, HighPointe’s Pediatric Pavilion Union Manager (on the left) and Buffalo Building & Construction Trades Council President Paul Brown.  The Building Trades recently made a $30,000 donation to the Unit, which will be used to help upgrade the playground area for the patients housed at the facility in order to provide the children and young adults with an opportunity to "do things regular kids do."  (WNYLaborToday.com Photo)

(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – You cannot help but be affected by what you see when you walk through the halls of the long-term Pediatric HighPointe Unit, located in Buffalo’s growing medical corridor.  Room after room houses patients - 20 in all, age one to 21, who are surviving by being kept alive with the help of respirators.  In one room, a 10-year-old lies in a bed - in a vegetative state, his eyes wide open.  He is being constantly shook by his ventilator to continually clear his lungs of fluid.  It’s a sight that will leave anyone with a heart moved to tears.

Several months ago, the President of the Buffalo Building & Construction Trades Council - Paul Brown, who also serves as Business Manager of Plasterers Local 9, arranged to have a weekly Trades meeting held in a conference area of the HighPointe Unit.  No strangers to the corridor - the Trades’ 18 affiliated Unions and the highly-skilled craftspeople they represent have built the Buffalo Medical Campus, but the leaders and representatives of those Construction Unions, however, had not seen what this unit displayed during their work there.  It clearly moved all and led to the Trades making a decision to donate $30,000 toward the continued expansion of an adjacent playground for those young patients, which was further increased by another $2,500 individual donation made by International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 17.

“The Trades built this (240,000-square-foot) building we are in, and Paul Brown and the Trades said they ‘really wanted to make a difference’ after everyone in the Trades came through.  ‘No one left without tears in their eyes,’” Eugene Gonsiorek, Kaleida Health’s Vice President of Long Term Care at HighPointe, told WNYLaborToday.com, adding the connection between the Trades and the Unit was made by Kaleida’s Senior Vice President/Chief of Staff Mike Hughes.  “We ‘need as much help as we can get and this (the Trades’ donation) is the largest, single donation we’ve ever received.’”

“I (personally) got involved (with HighPointe) last year,” Trades President Brown told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper (Brown spends some of his personal time at the facility, interacting with the patients and helping out).  “But this Trades Council ‘is great.’  ‘They are awesome, especially when it comes to something like this.’”

U.A. Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 22 Business Manager Sean Redden told WNYLaborToday.com that he initially thought HighPointe was an “old folks home” before finding out what role the center played.  He said he was emotionally moved when he learned for himself “about the kids on that floor who are in the shape they’re in.”

SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation) Local 71 Business Manager John Helak added: “This (donation) ‘allows us to give back to our community and that’s always a good thing.’”

“I was ‘floored,’” IUOE Local 17 Business Manager Gary Swain said of the tour he took of the facility.  “It’s an ‘impressive’ site and the level of children there who are getting care ‘tugs on you.’  My thought was ‘I’ve been in plenty of meetings where there are a pile of requests for donations.’  There’s ‘a lot of organizations out there looking for money.’  ‘But you go into a place like that - which is underfunded - and they are also struggling to get basic needs like clothing and new wheelchairs for those kids.’  The money ‘will be used for either a special swing that accommodates wheelchairs or for a carousel that does the same so they can get on and enjoy what other kids enjoy every day.’  ‘It will help make a difference in their lives.’”

“And I also want to say ‘that there are a lot of human being out there that I know, but Paul Brown is better than most and I have personally thanked him for that (getting the Trades involved in helping out at HighPointe),’” Swain told WNYLaborToday.com.

HighPointe is only one of three such facilities across New York State (the others are in Albany and New York City) that provides comprehensive health services to medically-fragile, technology-dependent and developmentally-disabled children, as well as some highly-specialized services not found anywhere else across Western New York. 

In fact, HighPointe is said to be the only long-term care Pediatric Unit east of the Mississippi River, featuring Staff experienced in caring for ventilator-dependent children. 

As previously stated, the facility cares for more than 20 pediatric residents who face a variety of challenges - tracheotomy patients, children with birth defects, paraplegics, and others.  They range from infancy to 21 years of age and are cared for by compassionate, specially-trained Health Professionals described as being skilled at using the latest technology and treatments.

“Our kids are here ‘not because of a single disease.’  It’s because some ‘were born with genetic problems, others were in car accidents or shot - and our unit takes care of them,’” said HighPointe’s Gonsiore, who noted that some parents of the children find it so hard to deal with their child’s current situation that they make the decision not to visit them.  “They ‘can’t’ talk.  They ‘can’t’ cry.  They ‘can’t’ scream.  We ‘rely on their monitors to tell if (they have a problem).’”

Hayley Guzowski, HighPointe’s Pediatric Pavilion Union Manager - a former Union Member with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1168, says: “The kids ‘are happy and (the Staff) enjoy them.’  ‘We make them as comfortable as possible and some of the kids are getting ready to go home.’  ‘They get a lot of attention.’”

Asked what it means to HighPointe to have the Buffalo Building Trades make such a donation, Guzowski told WNYLaborToday.com: “Their generosity ‘is amazing.’  These kids ‘will be getting so much more than what they wouldn’t be able to get.’  ‘They’ll be able to do some things that provide them with a ‘more normal’ life.’”

The Trades’ donation will help fund the second phase of the children’s expanding and specialized playground, with some of those dollars going to fund purchases of such things as clothing, backpacks (to house their portable ventilators) and new wheelchairs (Gonsiorek tells WNYLaborToday.com that each patient only gets funding for one specialized wheelchair during their lifetime - which costs around $5,000 each - and if a new one is needed, donations must be counted on, which makes the Trades’ donation even more important).”

HighPointe’s Staff also puts a lot of effort in making sure that the quality of life for each patient is the best that it can be as the children are actively involved in individually-developed activity programs.  Staff schedules outings to a variety of places and events in the Buffalo area, including theme parks, the county fair, to movie theaters and the zoo, and also lunches and trips to area malls and parks.  And - Staff also takes time to schedule parties during the holidays, to celebrate birthdays and other events on the Unit, as well as entertainers who come in to perform.  Arts and crafts, music and exercise programs are also a regular part of their life at HighPointe.

HighPointe recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open the specialized playground area that is accessible just outside the facility’s first floor operation - and a number of Trades Representatives were there to celebrate.

And while the celebration dealt with the Trades’ latest donation involving HighPointe, it was not the first donation the Buffalo Construction Unions have made to Kaleida Health, where they count more than one million man hours spent over the past several years building the City’s new and expanding medical corridor - Union.

Trades Reps tell WNYLaborToday.com they’ve been involved in helping Kaleida raise $200,000 over the past four years through a series of fundraisers, golf outings and cocktail parties – dollars that have gone for a variety of things, including the new Buffalo Children’s Hospital.

Back when the Trades Reps held their monthly meeting at HighPointe, Kaleida President and CEO Jody Lomeo was also in attendance, Gonsiorek told WNYLaborToday.com. 

“Lomeo came in and met with each of the Trades and he gave a speech, ‘saying everything that was happening on (the medical) campus was a snapshot of what Buffalo is.’  He ‘painted a picture of where we have been as a City and that all would not have happened without the (involvement of the) Trades.’  He said ‘it was a partnership,’” Gonsiorek recalled.

“And you know what, each of those Trades Reps ‘came up to me after they toured the floor and said if we ever needed anything, they wanted us to reach out to them.’  ‘That hasn’t happened with any other benefactor.’  ‘We have jobs in this world that we need to have people working, like the Trades.’  ‘They work hard and that’s what makes their donation so meaningful and wonderful,’” he said.

WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: For More Information on Kaleida Health’s Long-Term Pediatric HighPointe Unit, Go To: www.teeoff4tots.com/unit/.  And To Make A Donation, Go To: www.teeoff4tots.com/donations/.  Some Of The Photos Featured Within This Labor News Story Are Via The HighPointe Unit's Web Site, Including Photos Of The Ribbon-Cutting Celebration That The Buffalo Trades Attended And The Photos Of Their Patients.